Listen and love and support and whatever you can. But you can’t expect to save them. You can’t hold yourself responsible for their choices.

Her father had admired her mother without ever truly understanding her. And her mother – her mother had relied on her father without appreciating him. There had been a gulf between them that couldn’t be bridged by all the goodwill in the world.

Here’s the thing about New York, the thing I love most: there is no such substance as silence. If you ever stop talking, and he stops talking, the city takes over for you. A siren forms a distant parabola of sound. A door slams. The old couple in 4A argues over who will answer the telephone. The young lovers in 2C reach an animalistic climax. A million other lives play out on your doorstep, and not one of them gives a damn about your little problems. Life goes on and on and on.

Listen to me, Violet. I want more than this. I want to lie next to you at night and worship you. I want to watch you by day and see what you’re capable of, you astonishing woman, you bloody beautiful thing. I want to count every scintillation of you.

The lesson sank through the pores of my skin and into my bones. Say as little as possible about yourself. Don’t attract attention. Follow the rules. Be self-sufficient. Never, ever ask for help.

Honey, you always have a choice,” she says. “The trick is making the right one.

Sooner or later, the house always won. Pepper used to think that she was the house. She has it all: family, beauty, brains, moxie. You think you hold all the cards, and then you realize you don’t. You have one single precious card, and he wants it back.

I like the peace, you see. If there is disorder, it is hard for the spirit to be peaceful.

I thought I’d traveled into another universe. I thought I’d stepped into another Earth entirely, a paradise lit by an eternal sun, a release from everything old, everything dreary. Then I touched land and discovered that freedom was not so straightforward, that you could move to a different universe but you couldn’t escape the prison of your own skin.

She zipped her lips.